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Changing Tundra Landscapes

What Are They Doing?

Ms. Campbell worked with Donie Bret-Harte and a team of researchers who measured carbon, water, and energy fluxes at Toolik Field Station, Alaska. Their results were compared to findings from other arctic sites in Russia, Sweden, Greenland, and Canada to form a coordinated network of long-term observatories.

Laura Gough and John Moore investigated how climate warming affects arctic plant and soil communities both above and below ground. For example, as the Arctic continues to warm, soil nutrient availability will increase because the microbes are better able to decompose the organic matter present in the soil, releasing nutrients in the process. The team measured and compared a variety of factors in experimental and control plots in two different kinds of tundra. These data are crucial to understanding the long-term responses of these two communities and to predicting future changes.

Where Are They?

The team lived and worked at and around Toolik Field Station, located in the foothills of the Brooks Range in northern Alaska. Toolik Field Station is managed by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and has hosted hundreds of researchers and students each season since 1975.

Expedition Resources

Overview
Students will review charts of day length to determine when the sun will set at Toolik Lake.
Objective
Students will learn the following:
The sun is the major source of energy for phenomena on the earth's surface, such as growth of plants, winds, ocean currents, and the water cycle.
Seasons result from variations in the amount of the sun's energy hitting the surface, due to the tilt...

Article from The Shorthorn - University of Texas at Arlington's student newspaper detailing PI Laura Gough's participation in a PolarTREC Live from IPY! Event. Laura is working with PolarTREC teacher Cathy Campbell at Toolik Station, Alaska this summer.

Live from IPY event with PolarTREC teacher Cathy Campbell and researchers, Donie Bret-Harte, Laura Gough, and John Moore. The group called in from Toolik Field Station, Alaska to talk about the different research projects they are all involved in conducting about tundra ecology at the field station.

Journals

Meet the Team

Cathy Campbell became interested in science when she was a very little girl. Her grandfather had a city-lot sized garden, and every spring Cathy helped him plow and plant, water and weed, and watched as the plants bloomed, bore fruit, and were harvested. Worms, insects, birds, snakes, and all manner of critters fascinated her and led her to become a biologist. As the daughter of an English teacher, it was natural that she would also become a teacher. Ms. Campbell was a NASA Spaceward Bound teacher, leading to her research experiences in the Atacama Desert in Chile in 2006 and to the Mojave Desert in 2007. Many of the activities and experiences from her fieldwork have been translated into her classroom at Scarlett Middle School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Ms. Campbell has been teaching math and science for 12 years.

Donie Bret-Harte is a Research Assistant Professor at the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Dr. Bret-Harte is a plant community and ecosystem ecologist who examines how global climate change affects arctic vegetation composition and nutrient cycling.

Laura Gough is an associate professor of biology at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her research focuses on the forces that structure plant communities, how species diversity affects ecosystems, and the effects particular traits may have on species responses to disturbances. Dr. Gough has been studying arctic tundra in northern Alaska since 1996. In addition to arctic tundra, she has been active in research on several different ecosystem types, including salt marshes, coastal marshes, prairie, and savannah.

John Moore is a research scientist in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado. Dr. Moore’s professional and research activities cover several areas, including soil and theoretical ecology and food web dynamics. He is also the Director of the UNC Mathematics and Science Teaching (MAST) Institute. As Director, he leads several programs that involve pre-service teacher education, in-service professional development, and graduate studies for teachers.

This site is supported by the National Science Foundation under award 0956825.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this site are those of the PIs and coordinating team and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.